Work Text:
“Put this on.”
“What?”
“Just—don’t question it. Put it on.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Do you want my help or not?”
“Yes! Yes, of course I want your help. That’s the whole reason why I brought you here.”
“Good, then put it on.”
Peter looks at the fluffy Santa hat that Ned has thrusted out toward him, and now shakes for emphasis. Sure, it’s Christmas, he can see why a Santa hat would be appropriate, and yet—does he really need to be wearing that to reveal that he’s actually home for the holidays despite what he’s been telling Tony? Can’t he just pop out from behind the couch, yell ‘surprise!’ and call it a day?
But Ned shakes the hat again, a little more insistently this time, and Peter thinks; hell, it’s Christmas. What could it hurt? Might even help Tony realize the time of year, because knowing him, he must have been throwing himself so hard into his work the past couple of months that Peter has been at MIT, that he barely knows what day it is. Let alone what month, or why it’s significant.
So Peter snatches the hat out of Ned’s hands and puts it on. He lets Ned fuss with it a little to get his hair artfully styled around it (not that he trusts his best friend to make him look good, and with good reason), and tries his very best not to quirk a skeptical brow at him.
“Are you done? Happy now?”
Ned flashes a big, satisfied smile.
“Perfect.”
Ned spins him around by the shoulders and he’s hurried bodily towards the large box that Peter hadn’t even seen when he’d come in. How Ned got it there, Peter has no idea, but it’s nicely wrapped and if it hadn’t been stood open, Peter might have mistaken it for just another one of the presents, the way it stands by the foot of Tony’s big Christmas tree. Probably Pepper’s doing, to have it put up. Has Tony noticed? He hopes so, but he still makes a mental note to compliment whoever put it there on their decorating, because it’s put up beautifully with golden twinkling lights and baubles in various sizes and all kinds of shades of red.
There’s a few tentative conclusions Peter can reach, seeing the box standing there. Nevertheless, he’s not prepared for Ned’s actual plan until he hears it. He’d just been reassured, back when he was still in Boston, that Ned had the perfect idea on how to reveal to Tony that he was going to be around for Christmas, and Peter had trusted him fully.
Now, he’s not sure he should have. As much as he loves Ned.
“Get in,” he says cheerily when they stop short in front of the open box.
Peter’s eyes widen first at it, and then at his friend as he comes to stand beside him, and holds open one of the flaps.
“You’re joking, right? This is a joke?” Peter sputters. He looks from the box to his friend and back again. Ned’s expression turns from enthusiastic to serious.
“I’m taking my job of helping you surprise Mr. Stark very seriously, but I’m starting to feel like you’re not appreciating my efforts and ideas, Peter, and frankly I’m a little hurt.”
Despite Ned’s sincere expression, Peter can’t help but let out a burst of laughter.
“Your ideas to put me in a Santa hat and shove me into a box? Ned, you might as well have ordered me one of those giant birthday cakes and have me jump out of it!”
Ned, bless his heart, looks sincerely confused for a second. “But it’s not his birthday yet.”
“He might not even see this. I doubt he’s even noticed there’s an actual Christmas tree in his living room. He doesn’t pick up on those kinds of things unless it’s pointed out to him.”
“Aha!” Ned points at Peter triumphantly, “But that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve thought of everything, ye of little faith. You see, I texted him the other week—”
“How do you have his number?”
“—Doesn’t matter. Like I was saying, I texted him the other week to be all ‘oh hello Mr. Stark sir, what a wonderful Christmas we’re having don’t you agree’ and he was all like, ‘oh I haven’t noticed, but you’re right Ned it’s such a lovely Christmas this year’, which he actually didn’t say but sort of implied by the fact that he didn’t reply to me. And so I said ‘how is your Christmas tree looking this year?’ to which he said ‘Who is this?’ so I’m like 80% sure he’s totally aware.”
Ned looks so proud of himself, that Peter decides against responding, and just bites down hard on his lower lip and makes an agreeable noise in the back of his throat. If Ned notices it’s about an octave too high, he doesn’t react to it. He just makes a flourish at the box sitting in front of them.
Peter, against all odds, deflates with a big sigh.
“Alright, alright. I’ll do it. But how do I know when to jump out?”
Now that, Ned hasn’t seemed to think about. It shows on his face. Obviously, they can’t have Ned waiting there inside with him. It would make a big scene, and Peter doesn’t want Tony to come into his home thinking there’s an intruder. They stand in silence for a moment.
“Oh!” Ned exclaims triumphantly, “I’ll just stay a safe distance and text you when he comes in!”
That, while not entirely fool-proof, Peter supposes will have to do.
He climbs into the box.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for the text to come in. Peter is folded up in the box, which he is grateful is big enough to fit him with a little bit of wiggle room to spare, and sturdy enough that his elbows don’t threaten to burst out of the sides when he occasionally knocks into them. He’s laid there with his phone in his hand, trying to fill in a particularly difficult Sudoku, when Ned’s contact pops up with an incoming message to notify him of Tony’s imminent arrival.
Peter tucks his phone into his pocket, straightens his Santa hat one last time in the limited space he has, and goes as still as he possibly can.
And sure enough, just outside of the box, Peter can hear the telltale signs of a person approaching the sitting room.
His heart is racing in his chest, picking up speed the second he got Ned’s text. His phone is buzzing in his pocket but he ignores the remainder of the messages that are likely coming through in favor of concentrating on what is about to happen – without somehow completely ruining the surprise, of course. Hell, he’s so nervous that he thinks he might miss the jump somehow, crash into the side of the box, and fall flat on his face.
He readies himself, getting his feet under him as silently and with as little shifting as he can muster, and listens again.
The sound of footsteps is close, close enough that he can hear them even without advanced hearing, which means they have to be almost right outside the box where he’s sitting in hiding. There’s a creak and the sound of fabric, and Peter is 99% sure that it’s the sound of someone sinking down into the sofa, and he’s amping himself up, getting ready to jump, bracing himself for bursting through the thin layer of wrapping paper Ned so neatly covered the top of the box with. One last quick calculation on the probability of disaster, and he pushes up, throws his hands up as he jumps, and yells:
“Surpri—oh my god!”
Peter promptly slaps his hands over his eyes as if that could make him unsee what he clapped his eyes upon just a moment ago.
Tony is on the couch, yes. As predicted. But he’s not alone.
In his lap, sitting astride where Tony may or may not have his pants pulled down – Peter can’t and isn’t sure he wants to see courtesy of the skirt covering where the two bodies meet – is Pepper. Her blouse is undone.
The muffled sounds of fabric Peter had heard moments before he’d burst through the top of the box make sense now.
Pepper yelps. Tony whoops. Peter freezes.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry!”
Pepper is out of Tony’s lap in an instant, and Peter is grateful to see (through the gaps between his fingers) that they are both mostly dressed and that it was not as bad as Peter had feared. Pepper’s bra is only slightly visible, Tony’s shirt is unbuttoned too – both of which are bad enough for Peter personally as is, but will not kill any of them – and they were not, in fact… well.
They were kissing. And Peter is feeling some type of way having been privy to that from up so close. But all in all, it could have been a lot worse.
In fact, Tony looks about as pleased as Peter had hoped he would. Shit, it would have been so perfect.
“Pete!” Tony exclaims, throwing his hands up. It’s so sweet, except Pepper still looks sufficiently startled where she’s now sitting beside Tony, looking at Peter. “You’re back. This is great. Pep, did you orchestrate this? Is this the surprise you were talking about?”
Her chest is heaving, one hand over her heart, but much to Peter’s surprise, she doesn’t look annoyed. The longer Peter peers at her through his fingers, actually, the more the smile on her face seems to grow. When she speaks next, though breathless, she even sounds amused.
“No, Tony. This is not your surprise.”
Judging by how pretty and lacy Pepper’s bra is where it peeks out of her blouse, Peter can take a wild guess what that surprise was really supposed to be. And he’s gone and ruined it.
“I’m so sorry. Oh my god,” he’s still saying, and he can’t really seem to stop.
“Well it should have been,” Tony says cheerily, tips to the side where he’s still sprawled out on the couch to wrap his arms around Pepper and give her a firm squeeze. “How long have you been sitting in that box?”
Peter realizes the question is directed at him, and drops his hands. Tony still has his arms around Pepper, but he’s beaming at him in a way that makes Peter feel slightly lightheaded. Pepper, beside him, is also looking particularly pleased with the situation too, much to Peter’s bafflement.
“Uh,” he says intelligently, “Probably like… a half hour.”
“A half hour. All to surprise me?”
Peter nods faintly when Tony pushes himself up and comes over to Peter as if he wants to see just how little the box really is. He looks back at Pepper as if to say ‘are you seeing this?’, pointing down at where Peter is still standing.
“This is not how I meant for this to go,” Peter grimaces.
“Clearly not.” Tony reaches up and playfully flicks the fluffy white ball at the end of Peter’s Santa hat. Peter tries not to wince. His heart is still racing, but for an entirely different reason now. It’s no longer excitement, it’s dread. He doesn’t know what is about to happen and is torn between making a run for it and standing so still that maybe he’ll disappear and Tony and Pepper will forget he’s even there.
“Oh come on, Pete, you look like a kicked puppy. Where’s that excitement, huh? Where’s the Christmas spirit?” The way Tony claps Peter on the shoulder, though it might have made him cringe, actually works to help relax him a little. Especially when the hand stays there, and after a brief moment of Peter’s shoulders sagging, evolves into Tony’s arm slipping around him as he turns the both of them to Pepper.
She’s now sitting comfortably on the couch, her legs pulled up and tucked under herself, shoes off. She’s lounging, and although Peter might have expected her to look put off by the interruption, that’s not at all what he sees in her expression or her body language. She has her head propped up on one hand, while the other draws slow, mindless circles into her outer thigh. It’s kind of mesmerizing. Pepper sort of always is.
“Doesn’t he look like a kicked puppy?” Tony asks her.
Pepper hums. “Cute puppy, though,” she says with amusement in her voice.
“Really cute.”
Peter doesn’t know what it is, but Tony and Pepper always have a way of making him feel…appreciated. Part of the household. Even in the smallest of ways. Even when he’s pretty sure being called a puppy might have been vaguely insulting in any other scenario, with anyone else calling him that. When it’s Tony and Pepper, he knows it comes from a place of love. They’ve never given him any reason to distrust their affections. Peter’s also just been—a little bit oblivious to exactly what those affections entail.
But it’s Christmas. And they are not the type of people to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Tony claps his hand on Peter’s shoulder again, right where his arm is still around him. “Well! Guess that’s decided then. We’re just going to have to keep him.”
“Uh—huh?” Is what comes out of Peter’s mouth.
“He’s your present,” Pepper agrees with a small shrug, “Means you get to do with him what you want.”
The tide is turning so rapidly in Peter’s favor that he doesn’t know what to do with it. He looks from Pepper to Tony and back to Pepper with wide-eyed amazement. When he’d planned his trip back to New York to surprise Tony, this was not what he’d been expecting. The fact that Pepper would be here, and so clearly encouraging it, anyway. The rest—more or less. He’d had his hopes, anyway.
Tony makes a noise deep in his chest like he’s trying to decide on what to do. Meanwhile, though, he’s not-very-subtly steering Peter toward the couch, where Pepper is actively sitting up to create more room on there for him.
For both of them.
“I think…” He muses, while he sits down in front of Peter, who stands there, a little lost. Tony reaches out his hand, Peter lets him take his, lets him pull him down beside him. Once seated, the arm wraps around Peter’s waist, and pulls him in close. Tony’s other arm wraps around Pepper, who rolls her eyes when Tony tugs her in too, but still goes willingly.
Tony’s grin is victorious when he settles in at last.
“Yeah,” he says, kisses Pepper softly, then turns his head to Peter. His hand travels from around Peter’s waist, up his spine to the back of his head, fingers at the roots of his hair in a way that has Peter on the verge of melting into a puddle on the couch cushions and half over Tony’s lap. He can feel Tony’s breath on his skin, first his cheek then his lips, and his eyes start to slip shut. “Something like this.”
Peter’s brain stops functioning about a second after that.
But man, is he glad he recruited Ned into helping him, after all.